Local Band Clubhouse To Play In The Firefly Music Festival
By: Russ Heltman
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ATHENS, Ohio — This summer’s Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware sports headliners such as Bob Dylan, Chance The Rapper, and Twenty One Pilots.
And for Athens’ attendees, Clubhouse.
The Ohio-based indie-pop band won a chance to perform at Firefly through the Big Break Global Contest. A social media voting contest was sponsored by the festival to bring in the unsigned artist that fans want to see most. Voting allowed for fans to submit one vote per person each day. The polls closed at midnight Sunday and after hitting refresh one final time, the only logo left on the site belonged to Clubhouse.
Breaking Through
Clubhouse is the latest band to make a name for themselves in an environment producing the likes of Camp, and Jefferson Airplane. The band attributes a lot of their success to the Athens community.
“The music scene here is awesome, you know there is really cool venues to play at, we love playing at The Union especially.” Band Member Ari Blumer said. “The community that Athens and Ohio University provides us with was key to us getting voted on to take this opportunity, I mean we had faculty members send out emails telling students to vote.”
Clubhouse is a frequent feature at The Union, but it will be nothing like the national stage they are set to take in June.
Swelling Support
Clubhouse pulled out all the stops to get to Dover, calling on fans to vote as often as possible, while contacting everyone they personally knew for support. Blumer’s twin brother and Clubhouse drummer Zak went as far as to dial up his former elementary school teachers for help.
“The majority of this happening is because of our fans, some of our most dedicated fans are in the Columbus and Cleveland area.” Ari Blumer said. “They post about us all the time, or spread flyers around town and even sell merchandise, we want to have a mutually beneficial relationship with fans.”
Clubhouse fans in Athens also share a special bond with the group and they left no social-media stone unturned while rallying support.
“I tweeted a picture of the lineup and how to log in and vote for them,” friend of the band Brooke Tokar said. “I also sent the same thing in my sorority group chat and small groups, I know this was a dream of theirs and to see that come true is really cool.”
While Clubhouse doesn’t know the exact date they will be on a stage at FireFly, they can be seen at The Union Thursday, March 23 at 8:30 p.m. Admission is $6.